Those who know me......

.....shouldn't really be surprised that I started that vending machine thing and didn't finish. Not only did I not finish I, I only went a day and a half. In the end I didn't want to get something out of the vending machine to take it home for dinner.

Tech Corner this week involves and error received in Outlook 2003. A user was transitioned to a new profile on their machine as part of an enterprise wide change. After the transition the user would get the following error when they would try to send an email:

Your current security setting prohibit running ActiveX controls on this page. As a result, the page may not display correctly.

I tried everything short of giving the user admin rights (yes, I tried changing the security settings in Tools-->Options-->Security). In the end the problem had to do with the signature on the user's POP3 account. After the obligatory identifying information there was the office logo (it was displaying the "there is an image here but there is some problem" graphic --- the box with the red x in the upper left corner). When the signature was recreated (without the logo) there were no problems. For academic purposes I tried recreating the signature with the logo and I started getting the error again. I suppose I could have remedied the problem by giving the user greater rights but what self-respecting sys admin would do that?

Dinner - Day 1 and Day 2

9/6/06 - Dinner - Detour bar
9/7/06 - Breakfast - Juice
9/7/06 - Lunch - Water, nutrigain bar, goldfish, and Pop Tarts.
9/7/06 - Dinner - Detour bar, diet Mountain Dew.

Day 1 - Lunch

Peanut butter Detour bar - 330 calories, 9g fat, 32g carbs, 30g protein, 15% sodium.
Harvest Cheddar Sun Chips - 210 calories, 9g fat, 29g carbs, 4g protein, 10% sodium.
Minute Maid Cherry Limeade - 240 calories, 16oz, all sugar.

Not so gung-ho

Just when I think I am going to start posting on a regular basis I take a two month break. There are two reasons that I decided to put something up today. The first was one of the bosses last night. We were working late (around 8PM). He went to the vending machine and he was pretty excited when we came back. "Dinner for a buck. How great is that?" Diet Mountain Dew, mini doughnuts, and Pop Tarts. I said, "That is more like a buck ten." It was actually $1.20.

The other thing was Morgan from Supersize Me and 30 Days fame. I thought it may be entertaining to do something for 30 days and keep track of it.

Merge the vending machine with doing something for 30 days..........

I will be eating out of the vending machine at the office for the next four weeks. I started today with strawberry pop tarts and an orange juice.

Stay tuned.......

Third vacation post - St. Maarten

Pulling into the harbor




My sister, brother-in-law, and nephew




Positioning the ship to dock




One of the three pictures of me during the whole trip, during docking




More pictures of the harbor






This color makes me want to live in on an island in a tropical climate




Beach pictures






I'll take the house on the left with the blue roof for two hundred Alex.




The ship on the left was mine




The (touristy) downtown of St. Maarten. Around 50% of the stores sold jewelry. No joke.



You cannot escape Subway and of course it decides to rain after being 90 and sunny without a cloud in the sky. The falling rain was rather refreshing.




It was raining pretty heavily when we got back to the ship




The storm as we pulled away

Second vacation post - St. Thomas

This is the first picture and it is looking toward the front of the ship from the balcony.



Pulling up to St. Thomas


My father, brother-in-law, and I went golfing at Mahogany Run. It is the only golf course on St. Thomas. It was an amazing course. There are three holes (called the "Devil's Triangle") where you get some sort of prize if you don't hit it into a hazard. None of us made it through.




I almost made my way down the rocky incline to go swimming here.


The green where I almost went swimming. It was beautiful.


One of the holes of the Devil's Triangle.


Beautiful water by the above hole.


Waiting patiently, but almost dehydrated.


This sign is located near the rear of the ship. Do people seriously need a reminder?

First vacation post

The vacation started with some drama. The cruise departed from Ft. Lauderdale. Two people from the group were in Orlando going to Ft. Lauderdale. Another was in Ft. Myers heading to the same location. The remaining four of us were meeting in Canton at 6:30AM at the home of the three other than me. We got to the airport and were checking in 27 minutes before the flight and they wouldn't let us on. This was a problem because the only other flight to Ft. Lauderdale didn't get there until 6:30PM which was a couple of hours after the cruise left. We ended up getting a flight half an hour after the original one but it was to Ft. Myers. We rented a car and drove about two hours to Ft. Lauderdale. We did end up getting there with over an hour to spare.

Rescue Me

I do not see many moments in TV that are of a high cinematic quality. I generally do not watch many shows on any sort of regular basis with the exception be some that are on FX (Nip/Tuck, the subject of this post, and Las Vegas (not on FX)). A little over a week ago I was watching Rescue Me, a show on FX that stars Dennis Leary as a fireman. I was never a real big fan of his (I suppose I still am not, but at least I don't dislike him) until I started watching Rescue Me. In a nutshell, the show is about a firehouse in New York and the lives of the people in the house. Leary (Tommy Gavin) plays an alcoholic (currently sober, at least in this season), separated fireman who loves his women but hates their habits. In the opening credits , they play Come On, Come On, by the Von Bondies. I didn't mind the song before but now when I hear the song I yearn for the show. A recent show ended while the extended family was having a party for the father at a Chinese restaurant. Leary's wife has been sleeping with his brother for some period of time. At the restaurant he noticed that the brother and wife were sitting fairly close. He stuck his head under the table (making it look like he was picking something up off the floor) and saw that they were holding hands under the table. He came back up for a second then went down again to verify. He came back up for a moment then jumped across the table and started pounding his brother senseless. The music (Bonnie Brae by the Twilight Singers with the former head of the Afghan Whigs) started as the scuffle was heading out of the restaurant. There was a lot of drama and people trying to pull them off each other until it ended up in the street. Leary always had the upper hand. Down the sidewalk they went and into the street. Leary was kicking his brother in the middle of the street until he had enough and started walking into the street light sunset. The remainder of the crowd tended to the brother as the music hit the crescendoed and Leary kept walking. There aren't many quality cinematic moments in TV but this was one of them.

I am in danger......

...of losing my current nickname at work. The story behind the current nickname (ERF) is that there are forms that users fill out when they have a computer problem. It is call an 'Ethan Request Form'. Employees being the way employees are, they didn't like saying the whole name so the form name got reduced to ERF. After that (apparently saying Ethan was too much) they started calling me ERF.

Back to present day. There is a case in our office where a defendent is saying that they don't owe a debt because they are operating under a new name. It was requested that I go to the location to get pictures of the exterior signage and anything on the inside that would indicate the name the business was operating under. Surprise, surprise, everything indicated that they were still using the old name. I even purchased something and the receipt had the old name as did the credit card slip. When I got back to the office one of the attorneys said, "Hey there Magnum. All you need now is the 1980 something Ferrari." I may now be referred to as Magnum or Magnum P.I.

Boring

I never claimed to have an exciting life. Actually, I probably did at some point but I do not believe I have said it recently. The weekend consisted of doing accounting, taxes, yardwork, driving, eating, and watching the Pistons lose. How funny would it be if Detroit's two best teams (Red Wings and Pistons), both ranked #1 in the playoffs, ended up losing and the perennial loser (the Tigers not the Lions) ended up winning? Seriously, what happened so the Wings and the Pistons bombed/are bombing and the Tigers have the best record in baseball?

The songs have been mostly repeats lately. The new ones are:
Beach Boys - Wipeout
The Temptations - My Girl

Lost and found again

I found one of the sheets of songs! Rejoice!

Soundgarden - Doesn't Remind Me
Styx - Mr. Roboto
Guns N' Roses - Paradise City
The Eagles - Hotel California

Back by popular demand

It goes like this.....

I get tied up working (both during the day and at night). A month goes by and people start asking for an update. That being the case, what do I say? People tend to like the list of songs that I hear from my perch. I'll start there and see what happens.

The most recent songs in no particular order:

The Spinners - I'll Be There
Random songs with statements about people in the office sung (or not) to the melody of some other song.
Oops - I lost the list that had the rest of them.

I cut the grass this week for the first time this year. It was over a foot tall in some areas of the back 40. I still have piles of mulch, top soil, and peat moss in the driveway. Rosebushes need to be trimmed and the beds need to be weeded. Then there are the weeds in the grass that need to be taken care of. Does anyone want to help?

Inconsistent

I post three entries within a couple of days then nothing for close to three weeks? Such is the way of my world. I haven't really been moved enough to write anything. Actually, I may have been but I didn't realize how long it had been until four people mentioned it in the same day.


***Songbird update***

Barry Manilow - Copacabana
John Denver - Annie's Song
Unknown - Barb's Song

The songs have been repetitive lately so there haven't been many standing out.


***Beard update***

It must be spring because the beard has come off. I have decided that it will be a mid-April to mid-October occurence. In the meantime I will go with the "I haven't shaved for three days" look.


ERF over and out.

The famed Monte Cristo eating contest

The prepartion was arduous. The event was even more so. As with most things I am a legend in my own mind. I was running pretty high after winning the event last year (I ate 2 3/4 sandwiches in five minutes). For those of you who don't know, there is an annual St. Patrick's Day Monte Cristo eating contest at the Bennigan's in Plymouth, Michigan. I was determined to win it this year. I am not quite sure why I care but I suppose it is something to do. There is a prize of $250 that goes to the winner, and in my best Viper from Top Gun voice, "There are no points for second place." I drank 128oz of water on Friday in preparation. Prior to the start I wasn't feeling that good but I was rather hungry. I thought that I would best my record from last year but as fate would have it that was not the case.


Last year there were four people (including myself) in the contest. This year there were ten (again, including myself). Between the increased competition and the fact I wasn't feeling that great I was not very confident. This year they started each contestant out with eight pieces (each 1/4 of a sandwich) on their plate. After the contest I found out that they based that on how many I ate last year. A little over three mintues into the contest I was getting refills. Some of the pieces had just come out of the fryer and were very, very hot (my mouth still feels burned). I suppose I did slack a bit during the contest as I actually stopped at one point and kept raising my hands to get the crowd cheering. As it turns out all of my worry was for naught. I ended up eating nine pieces in five minutes with the next closest coming in at eight (the same as the closest last year). I retained my title and will be back next year to defend it.

The call

On my way home last night I got a call. "Do you want the good news or the bad news?" I asked for the good news. "The house didn't get damaged." And the bad news? "You know the giant pine tree by your pond? It got snapped off at the base and missed your house by a few inches, literally." As it turns out, it wasn't actually at the base. It was a couple of feet up. On the upside, if anyone knows someone who could use some pine to build something I have wood available.

I only heard one song from the office singer yesterday....Crazy by Seal.

Special request

Someone asked me why I hadn't posted something about my beard on my blog. I gave the person the story but for those of you who haven't heard it, here it is. It started off with not having enough time to shave for a few days. I liked the scruffy look so I let it go a little longer. Two weeks (or so) into it I thought about shaving it but decided to let it grow so I could avoid coming up with some reason why I only shave every two weeks. Then (the beginning of December) it was getting cold so I thought I would keep it through the winter. I may extend it a few months until I get my Lotus.

In other news there is a person in the office who likes to sing. I decided to start keeping track of the songs. For some time Mr. Brightside by the Killers was a favorite. Yesterday the songs I heard were:

Abba - Dancing Queen
Green Day - Basket Case
Minnie Ripperton - Loving You (Is Easy Because You're Beautiful)
Unknown - Bah, Bah Black Sheep (Have You Any Wool?)
Unknown - Knick, Knack, Paddy Whack (This Old Man)
Chicago - Feeling Stronger Everyday
Rick Springfield - Jesse's Girl
Ernie (from Sesame Street) - Rubber Ducky

More pictures

Quarterly update

Since January I have gone on a couple of trips for art-related business (Miami in January) and New Orleans this past weekend. Miami was nice. I stayed right on the beach in what is quite possibly the worst hotel ever. On the upside it was only $69/night, so what do you expect? New Orleans is just as dirty as I remember. It was odd seeing a waterline four feet up a building in a downtown setting. There will be a couple of places open then a couple of places closed. Then there are the large chain stores that look like they have been looted (everything in the Virgin Music store was gone, down to the fixtures). I went to the zoo Sunday (the pictures are below). I got the camel pictures just for Moe!

Efficient update

1. I missed the office party.
2. I had a *GREAT* time in Chicago (even though I was working, mostly).
3. The art keeps accumulating around the house.
4. I need to clean the garage so I can park in it.
5. I don't like snow on the roads.
6. Christmas was great, except the part where my dad had a heart attack (midweek before).
7. Florida was great and he got to go. I need a job where I can live there three months a year.
8. #7 is also known as 75 and sunny is better than 35 and flurries.
9. Next on the radar is trip to Miami this month for an art show and Vegas in May.